Until I moved out to pursue my masters, I would get my hair cut at the same saloon. That was the case until 2016. I graduated in 2018, and my favourite barber – Kashinath died the same year. Just before I moved to Bangalore. In Bangalore, my experience with barbers was always a hit and a miss. In fact until Covid, hit, I took every trip to the barber like bitter medicine. I always looked funny for the first few days and then eventually I stopped caring.
In fact, just this week, James Clear compared bad haircuts to bad decisions, short terms ones which you can live with for a few days. Over the years however, I have experienced the occasional satisfactory cut. And it was always by barbers who treated their work like craft. They would become true craftsman and take due care to ensure the correctness in all forms. They all take their sweet time and don’t hurry through. The good folks, I have noticed, also focus and avoid distractions, which means no checking phones while on the job.
I have also noticed that some of the barbers don’t rely on their years of experience and take the same level of care. Most books on performance, mastery and excellence – talk about exactly the same things. Have a learner’s mindset, don’t look over the details, take effort, be deliberate in your practice. Treat your work like a craftsman.
But productivity literature on the other hand suggests efficiency in planning and speed in execution. You got to be fast at generating charts and drawing insights. You got to master macros to cut down on repetitive tasks. You got to have templates to respond quickly to mails.
This is where the balance between efficiency and craftsmanship comes. Does spending more time doing the same thing improve accuracy and speed? Perhaps. But the element of creativity may get lost. How do you strike the balance ? It is an interesting thought experiment to perform.
